casual sex vs love in a 1.5 year relationship

[dampestbro]

Hey guys. So I am a 17 year old male, and I have been seriously dating a girl for almost 19 months. While we started off in the same school, she graduated four months into our relationship and went off to college while I stayed behind because I am two years her junior. She goes to school about 600 miles away so I see her about once a month.

But now.. I’m starting to realize that I’m scared of commitment. I’m scared of marrying her (which seems like a very real possibility at this point) and finding out she is a mean, nagging b****. I have already seen her get like that to me and it is horrible and I told her if she was like that I would dump her so she has been on better behavior. I’m scared of having kids with her and then growing to hate her and then it being too late.

But I’m scared most of all of never having sex with anyone else in my life. I have never cheated and neither has she, despite us rarely seeing each other. However, I want to try the excitement and spontaneity of casual sex at least once. I’ve only had sex with one other girl, and it was my ex girlfriend who I dated for 10 months (out of pity, which was a huge mistake.)

She, however, had sex with two guys casually before me. They both treated her like shit even though she wanted to date them, but since she gave it up so easily (on the first date with one of the guys) they never felt obligated to date her. SO she was content with FWB with them for months. She only cut it off when she met me.

It took me over a year to get over her past. And ironically, now I find myself wanting to do what she did: have sex with whomever, whenever. I won’t lie to a girl and feign romantic interest to get sex like those douches did though.. I am not THAT much of a hypocrite.
I look at things a bit cynically but realistically. I probably won’t go to the same college as her which means another 2-4 years away from her, and not being single will be tough there.

My vice principal and counselor (both women) strangely asked me about my sex life, and when I told them I was still dating the same girl after a year and a half, they told me to tell her “theres enough of me to go around.” They said the reason their marriages are intact is because they did whatever they wanted in their youth and they never missed out on anything. They said that If I marry her and never sleep with anyone else, when I’m 40 I’ll have a crisis and go out and try to do the things I should have done in my youth (which will cause me to neglect the true responsibilities of adulthood i.e. kids, work, wife.) They said to not get attached now, or at least not monogamous.

They told me what I’ve been arguing in my head for months. I know that If I go my entire life only sleeping with her, especially knowing that she got to sleep around casually at one point and I didn’t, I will become bitter and regretful. But I love her. And that’s the problem.

If I break up with her now, I’ll miss her like crazy, and her friends and her dad, and I might end up seeing her as the one that got away. And an open relationship.. well that could break her heart. And who knows, it might break our relationship too.

Oh and also… my sex drive is way higher than hers. My ideal is at least once a day while hers is twice a week. And if that’s hers with all of youth’s free time, I imagine those numbers will decrease with the stresses of married life.

I am coming to you guys because you’re wiser than me, and because out of all the options on the table, each one scares me. Having these thoughts makes me feel like a terrible person…
I always judged people for not being romantic or faithful enough and now I’m the person I dreaded becoming…
Thanks for reading all of this. Replies would be hugely appreciated. I need advice.

[Zachary G]

you have posed a very difficult situation there. my best advice it that the two of you have "the talk" and decide what will work best for you.

[Karkat]

It sounds like the only thing you can do is express this to her. Worse comes to worst, you guys breakup anyways- if your relationship can't make it past this, it won't make it past anything else either.

[Laraa.01]

This is a real tough one and I think only you can choose what you wanna do. I certainly see the reasons for both paths. I personally would think long and hard about how much she really means to you and how distraught you would be if the relationship were to end. I do know people who have only ever had sex with the one person and now they are happily married adults. Only thing is for that to work out she really has to be the love of your life and you need to think of nothing but her. The fact that you are even contemplating 'playing the field' means she might not be your everything.

[Bsmith_90]

Hey man, i feel sorry for you this is probably a very difficult decision for you. There's a few possibilities that could happen.

You could stay with her, maybe spend the rest of your life with her, marry her. But you'll always have what if's in the back of your mind.

You could break up with her, have all the sex you want and possibly meet another girl and you'll look back at this and laugh. But it isn't guaranteed you will meet another girl you love as much as your current girlfriend.

There is however a third option which is extremely unpopular to a lot of people, but it may be what you need.

You say you only see your girlfriend once a month, well during the time you are away from your girlfriend, you could hook up with other girls without your girlfriend needing to know. That way you don't have to break up with your girlfriend, but you get to have all the casual sex you want. However i wouldn't advise this unless you are 100% sure you won't feel guilty, you are sure the other girls don't know you have a girlfriend and won't say anything and you can keep your mouth shut.

The choice is yours, ive given you my opinion and it's up to you whether you follow my advice or not.

[SethfromMI]

well you have to continue to think about what you want. from everything you posted, you gave more reasons to break up then to stay together. I am not telling you that is what you should do, but it seems like you are leaning in that direction. does she make you happy? can you see living happily for the rest of your life with her? if not, then you need to talk. you really need to talk regardless. if you cant see yourselfbeing happy with her for the rest of your life, then you shouldn't be getting married to her

[asrlem]

I would think long and hard about what you want for yourself and then talk to her and tell her what you feel and see if she is the same way or what is going on because if you dont have a heart to heart about this then something may happen that you dont like so you should talk to her about exactly how you feel.